Is Donald Trump like a beast from mythology beginning to devour himself?

Jefferson "Jeff" Beauregard Sessions III, a hard right, openly rascist Republican Party politician from Alabama, has served in the US Senate from 1997 to 2017 when he became Attorney-General in the Trump Administration - a post he held until forced to resign by President Trump on 7 November 2018.

Sessions is recontesting his Senate seat in 2020 and that hard right, openly rascist, authoritarian, Republican Party politician Donald J.Trump is now actively campaiging against him, blaming him for his own presidential impeachment charges.

.@realdonaldtrump Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you're damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don't dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do. https://t.co/QQKHNAgmiE

— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 23, 2020

Alabama has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980.

However, in 2017 the Republican Party lost Session's former Senate seat to the Democratic Party once he vacated to become US Attorney-General.

In 2018 Alabama's public debt stood at est. US$29.65 billion and in 2019 this debt had reportedly risen to US$39.8 billion.

The state's share of the US export market had fallen by -3.1% in 2018 to 2019.

During Donald Trump's presidency Alabama has remained the 6th poorest state in the nation.

With only around six months to go until the next federal election, this state's monthly unemployment rate had jumped to 12.9% by April 2020 - its worst rate in nearly 37 years - due to the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which has seen 13,418 Alabamans infected and 541 killed to date.

One has to suspect that much of the shine may have gone off Donald Trump as far as Alabama is concerned.

Looking at the faces of people US President Donald Trump choses as props for his media appearances

https://youtu.be/X_PKpKQ8Ltk

The Atlantic, 26 April 2020:

Donald Trump loves attention, and people can’t help but give it to him. It’s been this way for a generation. Television cameras and tabloids were trained on him long before he was president, and even more so now. In the three years since he took office, it can sometimes seem impossible to look away. But I’ve always found that paying attention to the people around Trump is far more revealing than watching the man himself.

Cartoons of the Week

David Rowe

Mark David

And the madness grows in the United States of America in 2020

This is not a hoax. It is a document generated by a Tennessee General Assembly statutory oversight committee.

Transcript of the draft bill in question.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 779 

By Van Huss 

A RESOLUTION to recognize CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and condemn them for denigrating our citizens. WHEREAS, on October 3, 2019, an editor for The Washington Post wrote that President Donald J. Trump has cast a spell on the Republican Party and suggested that Trumpism is cultlike; and 

WHEREAS, on November 24, 2019, a CNN host suggested that Trump supporters belong to a cult and that our president is using mind control; and 

WHEREAS, we recognize that fake news outlets suggest ideas without directly making accusations so that they can claim innocence from their ivory towers; and WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest "cult-of-Trump" meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and 

WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone's perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and 

WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual. They are tired of being politicians' political pawns, and they are tired of every other country's needs being put before their own; and 

WHEREAS, suggestions of cult-like behavior by President Trump's supporters substitute a value judgment in place of a sorely needed argumentative analysis of how voters generate their own political views; and 

WHEREAS, to describe the entire Republican Party as a cult led by President Trump is problematic: If journalists are going to refer to the party as a cult and its supporters as cultists, they must define what "cult" means; otherwise, they are assuming that a cult is some obvious phenomenon and everyone knows what the word means; and 

WHEREAS, this cult diagnosis isn’t a reasoned argument, or even an objective description; and 

WHEREAS, the cult diagnosis draws a line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters, and it oversimplifies the way people think and feel about their own beliefs and those on the other side of that line; and 

WHEREAS, President Trump understood their frustration when he ran for office; he has taken a stand on behalf of the middle class and everyday people, and that is the reason he has growing support; and 

WHEREAS, suggestions that supporters of President Trump are exhibiting cult-like behavior isn't helpful in an era of significant political polarization; now, therefore, 

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE SENATE CONCURRING, that the State of Tennessee recognizes CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and part of the media wing of the Democratic Party. 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we condemn them for denigrating our citizens and implying that they are weak-minded followers instead of people exercising their rights that our veterans paid for with their blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE

Forty-one year old James "Micah" Van Huss is a self-declared pious Christian, ex-military Republican 
member of the Tennessee House of Representatives representing over 14,000 people in House District 6 in Washington County since January 8, 2013.

Republican Super Pac hopes to defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box - one attack ad at a time

The Lincoln Project states that its mission is to: Defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.

A fascinating aspect to this project is that it is a super PAC* which was created by conservative and registered Republican voters.

It has been running strong political attack ads since January 2020.

This one targets Trump and the evangelical Christians who support him.....

https://youtu.be/yoglNFN5-Js

While this ad targets a Republican senator who voted to acquit Trump of both articles of impeachment.......

https://youtu.be/PgmXzmwaDhU

NOTE
* According to the US Federal Election Commission; "Super PACs are independent expenditure-only political committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other political action committees for the purpose of financing independent expenditures and other independent political activity."

Quote of the Week

"If we nominate Trump, we will be destroyed… and we will deserve it."

[South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, quoted in BBC News, 4 May 2016]

IMPEACHMENT OF A U.S. PRESIDENT: Dear Madam Speaker, Sincerely yours, Donald J. Trump

Nineteen politicians/public officials were impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives before Donald J. Trump became the twentieth individual and the third president to be referred to the Senate.

All but one of these nineteen had a Senate trial. Seven were acquitted, eight found guilty, with another four jumping ship through pre-emptive resignation and jurisdiction lapsing in the matter of another.

Of the two presidents in this list, Andrew Johnson and William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton - both were acquitted.

Richard Milhous Nixon is not on this list as he was the only U.S. president to resign in order to avoid a formal Senate trial.

Impeachment charges ranged from: conspiring to assist in Great Britain’s attempt to seize Spanish-controlled territories; waging war against the U.S. Government; sexual assault, obstructing and impeding an official proceeding; making false and misleading statements; criminal disregard for the office and accepting payments in exchange for making official appointments; income tax evasion; abuse of contempt power and other misuses of office; and of remaining on the bench following criminal conviction; through to charges of intoxication on the bench.

On 19 December 2019 the House of Representatives impeached Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanors" on a 230 to 197 vote regarding "abuse of power" and a 229 to 198 vote regarding "obstruction of Congress".

One Democrat and two Republicans did not participate in either vote and one Democrat declared neutrality with a Present declaration.

The day before the vote Trump wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.......

President Donald Trump’s le... by Digital Desk on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/440211861/President-Donald-Trump-s-letter-to-Speaker-of-the-House-Nancy-Pelosi

After the impeachment vote Trump tweeted:

pic.twitter.com/DutxclyZw9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2019

Facebook Inc being exposed as placing advertising revenue ahead of safeguarding democratic election campaign processes

https://youtu.be/1iCVn_JvOiQ

The New York Times, 30 October 2019:

At the Capitol last week, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have much of an answer to a question about addressing lies in political ads on Facebook.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country. 

If America's worst enemies had spent years designing a plan to erode our greatest strengths, they could not have done better than what some of our fellow citizens are doing to the country every day for short-term financial or political gain. 

Prominent figures in government, politics and commerce are behaving in ways that are so destructive of the core institutions and norms that underpin our democracy, one can only assume that they take the country's stability as a given -- that they can abuse and stress it all they want and it won't break. 

They are wrong. We can break America, and right now we're on our way there. Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country. 

This moment "is like Wall Street before the financial crisis, when everyone just took for granted that the system was forever stable," remarked Gautam Mukunda, research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of "Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter." 

"So they kept taking bigger and bigger risks and pushing it harder and harder -- until they pushed too hard and it crashed and the government had to step in and rescue everyone. If they keep acting like this, Trump and his allies will keep getting short-term wins until the system crashes. Only there won't be any government to step in and rescue them, because they'll have broken it -- and the country along with it." 

What am I talking about? I'm talking about a president willing to sink to banana republic governing norms, including withholding aid to Ukraine to compel its leadership to investigate his political rival. 

I'm talking about Republican lawmakers who know that the president's Ukraine machinations are indefensible and impeachable, particularly after Tuesday's disclosures by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, that he personally heard President Trump appeal to Ukraine's president to investigate Joe Biden. 

Republicans now have a clear choice: let the constitutional impeachment process proceed or attack the process, i.e., our legislative-judicial order. Alas, a majority seem to be opting for the latter. 

They justify it with daily new conspiracy theories amplified by Fox News. They even stormed a secure room in the Capitol to mislead the public into thinking these hearings are totally one-sided -- when in fact both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and lawyers from the relevant committees are doing the questioning. 

In attacking all the diplomats, intelligence officers and civil servants who have stepped forward, at great professional risk, to bear witness against Trump, they are attacking the people who uphold the regulations -- and provide the independent research and facts -- that make our government legitimate and the envy of people all over the world, where many people have to bribe government workers for service. 

And, finally, there's the internet barons who for too long ignored the weaponization of social media, which is turning our free press into a house of mirrors, where citizens can no longer cognitively discern fact from fiction and make informed judgments essential for democracy. 

I watch it all and wonder: "Are you really doing that? Do you all go home at night to some offshore island where the long-term damage you're doing to America doesn't matter?" 

And what's even more frightening is that there are now so many incentives in place in media and politics -- from gerrymandering to unlimited campaign contributions to data systems that can ever more perfectly define us, divide us and subdivide us -- to ensure that these people will keep on hammering our system until they smash it to pieces. 

Look at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was questioned last Wednesday at a House hearing by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A.O.C. was trying to grasp why Zuckerberg thinks it's O.K. for politicians to run political ads that contain obvious lies, as the Trump campaign has already done in a Facebook ad about Biden viewed by some five million Facebook users. 

This is all about money for Zuckerberg, but he disguises his motives in some half-baked theory about freedom of the press -- so half-baked that he couldn't explain it even when he knew he would be asked about it by a congressional committee. 
Read it and weep: 

A.O.C.: "Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal?" 

M.Z.: "Can you repeat that?" 

A.O.C.: "Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal? If you're not fact-checking political advertisements, I'm trying to understand the bounds here of what's fair game." 

M.Z.: "I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head." 

A.O.C.: "Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?" 

M.Z.: "Congresswoman, I think lying is bad. I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That's different from it being -- in our position, the right thing to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied." 

A.O.C.: "So you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? It's a pretty simple yes or no." 

M.Z.: "Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves." 

Yeah, right, as if average citizens are able to discern the veracity of every political ad after years of being conditioned by responsible journalism to assume the claims aren't just made up. 

Just once I'd like to see Zuckerberg look into a camera and say: "I will take Facebook stock down to $1 if that is what it takes to ensure that we're never again an engine for the perversion of democracy in any country, starting with my own. Facebook is not going to accept any more political ads until we have the resources to fact-check them all." 

I doubt he'll do that, though, because his priorities are profits and power, and he seems quite ready to hurt American democracy to get them......

And the weridness that is American politics continues.......

Catching up on Trumpian politics

The New Yorker online, 4 September 2019, excerpt:

Trump not only makes us believe it now but, as we approach the three-year mark of his upset victory, in 2016, his project has succeeded in such a confounding way that it seems as though Americans will now believe anything—and nothing at all. 

Today there are few things too extreme not to have plausibly come out of the mouth, or the Twitter feed, of the forty-fifth President. 

In August, Trump called himself the “Chosen One” for the confrontation with China, grinned and flashed a thumbs-up during a photo op with the family of mass-shooting victims, accused Jews who voted for Democrats of “great disloyalty,” and called the chairman of the Federal Reserve an “enemy” of the United States. 

He cheered the robbery of a Democratic congressman’s home and labelled various critics “nasty and wrong,” “pathetic,” “highly unstable,” “wacko,” “psycho,” and “lunatic,” among other insults. 

The daily stream of invective from Trump was dizzying to keep track of, and so voluminous as to almost insure that no one could, in fact, do so.

Quote of the Week

"Donald Trump is unfortunate proof that it does actually matter who gets elected. His policies are just bad for the world." [Journalist Greg Jericho, The Guardian, 25 August 2019]

U.S. Politics 2019

US President Donald J. Trump turning from the cameras with arms outstretched to raise his eyes to the sky at the moment he said "I am the Chosen One", C-Span YouTube account, 21 August 2019. 
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzlxrPC_E_U

FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to be active during the 2020 presidential election cycle

FBI Intelligence Bulletin, excerpt, 30 May 2019

Yahoo! News, 2 August 2019:

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. (Read the document below.)

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of this threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI does not specify which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to.

FBI Conspiracy Theory Redacted by Kelli R. Grant on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/420379775/FBI-Conspiracy-Theory-Redacted

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 2019:

At a few minutes before 11 am on Saturday in El Paso, Texas, a gunman in his early 20s opened fire on a crowd of shoppers in a mall killing at least 20 and wounding dozens of others, placing the suspect’s rampage among the top ten deadliest mass shootings in US history.....

As hospitals in the local area deal with what can only be described as the bloody battlefield carnage, federal and state authorities are moving closer towards establishing the suspect’s motive for carrying out the mass casualty attack.

Federal law enforcement investigators have told CNN that they are reviewing writings they believe to have been posted online by the suspect, Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old white man from Dallas, but are yet to publicly confirm.
 
Essentially, the gunman’s alleged manifesto reads as a carbon copy of that espoused by those who carried out the recent and respective attacks on the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

"This is a response to the Hispanic invasion," it reads, according to the FBI. It then goes on to accuse the Democratic Party of "pandering to the Hispanic voting bloc”, while also expressing his contempt for “race mixing” and support for “sending them back.”

These right-wing extremists are not only channelling neo-Nazi borne “Great Replacement” conspiracy theories, which frame demographic change as a threat to white Europeans, but also taking a cue from the words and policies of President Donald Trump.

It was only two weeks ago when Trump inspired an auditorium full of his supporters to chant “send her back” in reference to the country’s first elected black Muslim congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia and migrated to the US as the young daughter of refugee parents.

Earlier in the year, Trump smeared all immigrants approaching the US-Mexico border as invaders when he said, “People hate the word ‘invasion', but that’s what it is.”

Trump has also referred to Latin American refugees and asylum seekers as “rapists”, “criminals”, drug dealers” and “terrorists”.

It’s worth remembering that when a Rwandan politician described Rwanda’s Tutsi minority as “cockroaches” it started a genocide that resulted in the deaths of upwards of one million people in that country.....

Tweets of the Week

In 2018, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, against the Russian Federation et al. Donald Trump Jr is one of the defendants. There is a court hearing today - Trump Snr trying shut lawsuit down #USPolitics pic.twitter.com/hT2ioGEhPS

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) July 19, 2019

Good morning @ScottMorrisonMP

While you're off to Hillsong to clap your hands & speak in tongues, just wanted to let you know that my 90yo Mum who was once a milliner is busy today making this for you in Blue.

Let me know if you'd prefer black text.

& you're welcome. #auspol pic.twitter.com/hG4MVQJ5H7

— 💧🌏🏳️‍🌈Jenny Frecklington-Jones; #NotMyPM (@Triplejay58) July 20, 2019

exciting to see major media have worked out that #RaiseTheRate would be an actual stimulus measure. Looks like we’re just waiting on how government can work it into their economic narrative and it might just happen. Priorities. #Insiders

— Ingrid M (@iMusing) July 20, 2019

USA 2019: The Fool On the Hill

There are really only two rational responses to the actions of US President Donald Trump - spontaneous loud laughter or appalled silence.

This time it was the laughter......

The Guardian, 12 June 2019:

https://youtu.be/lwwbFDIBjVM

Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said Mexico also agreed to a 45-day timeline to show increased enforcement efforts were effective in reducing the people flows. If that fails, Mexico has agreed to consider a longstanding US demand that Central American asylum seekers crossing through Mexico apply for refuge there, not the United States, making Mexico a “safe third country”, a demand that Mexico has long rejected.

“Safe third country could be applied if we fail, and we accept what they say,” Ebrard said on Tuesday evening, noting that Mexican legislators would then give consideration to accommodating a change in migration law.

Nevertheless, Ebrard said other Latin American countries should share the burden, something that the United States appeared to have agreed to.

The document that Trump waved at reporters laid out “a regional approach to burden-sharing in relation to the processing of refugee status claims to migrants”; talked of “45 days”; and said Mexico had committed to immediately examine its laws and rules to enable it to implement such an agreement.

Snapshot of the piece of paper Trump was waving about.......

CBS, The Late Show

The one about the Australian entitled private school twit & political dunce, with a penchant for fishnet and leopard skin, who did the United States of America the favour of the century

ABC News, 24 May 2019:

One rainy night in May 2016, a Trump campaign advisor named George Papadopoulos walked into a posh wine bar in affluent West London.

The meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms was only meant to be a drink with Australia's High Commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer.

It is still hard to believe that former Howard Government minister and Liberal MP for Mayo Alexander John Gosse Downer AC, as High Commissioner for Australia in the United Kingdom - a man who once posed like this (left) - actually managed to alert the US  government which triggered the Federal Bureau of Investigation examination of Donald J. Trump's presidential election campaign and Russian interference in US electoral processes.

However, the Mueller Report indicates at a number of points that this is the case.

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volume I of ll, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, March 2019, extracts:

In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities……

July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government repo11ing, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign…..

In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud's return from a trip to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton…..

Further reading

Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volume I of ll

US Court Blocks Trump's Border Wall As Court Case Proceeds

It would appear that two years and four months after Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States of America a healthy resistance against his heavy-handed autocratic tendencies is still alive and well........

“The position that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds “without Congress” does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic."  [Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, US District Court Northern District of California, Sierra Club et al v Donald J. Trump et al, 24 May2019]

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 25 May 2019:

From the beginning of his campaign for president, Donald Trump claimed that he was going to build a wall along the southern border. He said “nobody builds walls better than me.” He said the wall would be “big” and “beautiful.” He said someone elsewould pay for it. And he said it would be built so fast that “your head would spin.”

Last night, for the first time, a federal judge made clear to President Trump he couldn’t get his wall by illegally diverting taxpayer money.

The judge’s ruling comes in an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC). Together, the Sierra Club and SBCC represent the communities who live in, protect, and treasure the lands and communities along our southern border. For years, these communities have engaged in the democratic process and successfully persuaded their congressional representatives to deny President Trump funding to build his wall.

Our lawsuit centers on the question of whether the president abused his power to divert funds for a border wall Congress denied him. Unfortunately for President Trump, the Constitution is clear on the matter: only Congress has the power to decide how taxpayer funds are spent. And Congress, like border communities, said no to the President’s wall.

Congress didn’t bow to Trump’s pressure even after he caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history over his demands for billions of dollars for his wall. Congress allocated only a fraction of the money that Trump demanded, and imposed restrictions on where and how quickly any border barriers could be built.

In a blatant abuse of power meant to circumvent Congress, President Trump declared a national emergency on February 15, 2019, and announced he would illegally divert $6.7 billion from military construction and other accounts for the border wall project.

From the beginning, the emergency was obviously a sham. Trump said as much himself when he declared the emergency, saying he “didn’t need to do this” but he’d prefer to build the wall “much faster.” He added that he declared a national emergency because he was “not happy” that Congress “skimped” on the wall by denying him the billions he demanded.

Despite this, the Trump administration tried to argue in court last Friday that Congress never actually “denied” President Trump the billions of dollars he is now trying to take from the military. The court rejected the administration’s argument, reminding the administration that “the reality is that Congress was presented with—and declined to grant—a $5.7 billion request for border barrier construction.”

The court’s ruling blocks the sections of wall that the Trump administration announced would be built with military pay and pension funds. It also invites us to ask the court to block additional projects as they are announced in the future. The judge emphasized the government’s commitment to inform the court immediately about future decisions to build.

It may be easy to ridicule President Trump’s desperation for a border wall — an absurd and xenophobic campaign promise for which he has only himself to blame. But as pointless and wasteful as it may be, Trump’s campaign promise now threatens to cause irreparable and real damage to our constitutional checks and balances, the rule of law, border communities, and the environment.

The wall is part of an exclusionary agenda that President Trump has targeted, over and over, at people of color. From his notorious Muslim Ban, to his efforts to eliminate protections for immigrants from Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, courts have found“evidence that President Trump harbors an animus against non-white, non-European” immigrants. Trump has repeatedly justified his wall by lying about border communities, falsely claiming that America needs a wall.

Border communities know firsthand that walls are dangerous and wasteful. They divide neighborhoods, worsen dangerous flooding, destroy lands and wildlife, and waste resources. As our clients explained to the court, “we are a community that is safe, that supports migrants, that works well together and supports one another, that is worthy of existence.”  What border communities truly need is infrastructure and investment, not militarization and isolation.

The court’s order is a vindication of border communities’ advocacy for themselves, and of our Constitution’s separation of powers. As the court wrote, “Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures—even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important—is not a bug in our constitutional system. It is a feature of that system, and an essential one.”

US President Donald J Trump finally admits in writing that Russia helped get him elected in 2016

* My blue highlighting

American Politics: Opening lines to remember

From "Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About The Worst President Ever" by Rick Wilson, published in 2018.

Quote of the Week

"So therein lies what’s like your classic Catch-22 situation where we’re at a -- it puts us in such a tough spot. If Sessions won’t un-recuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones, which is really the danger. That’s why I keep -- and thank you for saying it by the way -- I mean, we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away." [Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California on the need for the Republican Party to protect Donald Trump from the DOJ-FBI Russia investigation, quoted in The Intellectualist, 9 August 2018]